Bluehost vs GoDaddy

If you’re thinking about creating a website or starting a blog, I’m sure that you stumbled across Bluehost and GoDaddy at some point. Many of us do. These web hosts are very popular and draw a lot of people in with their incredibly competitive pricing options. So, which web host is better? Hopefully, this Bluehost vs GoDaddy comparison reveals the better web host that fits your needs.

If you do a quick search, you’ll find that both of these companies have a fair share of both positive and negative reviews floating around.

QUICK COMPARISON BETWEEN BLUEHOST AND GODADDY

I realize that some of you may not have the time to read a long post and want to cut to the chase. So, I’ve included the key distinguishing features between the two hosting providers in the table below.

Look it over and see which web host works better for you. And as always, if you want to read the entire Bluehost vs GoDaddy comparison, feel free to do so.

The price of hosting will vary based on what plan you choose and if there are promotions going on.

Bluehost offers three shared hosting packages – starter, plus and business pro. The starter plan allows you to host a single website and is ideal for websites that don’t need a lot of resources. All other plans allow you to host unlimited websites and don’t limit any of the hosting features – bandwidth, storage, email accounts, etc.

The business pro plan goes above and beyond by giving you a free SSL, along with a dedicated ip address and domain privacy for a single domain.

Bluehost shared hosting plans:

GoDaddy also offers three shared hosting packages – economy, deluxe and ultimate. The economy plan allows you to host a single website and is also geared towards basic websites that aren’t looking for a lot of features.

The other two plans allow you to host unlimited websites. Additionally, these plans offer unlimited bandwidth and storage. The ultimate plan offers a free SSL and premium DNS.

At the end of the day, GoDaddy is cheaper than Bluehost during your first term. However, GoDaddy’s renewal rates are quite high.

PERFORMANCE & UPTIME

In terms of performance and reliability, this is where Bluehost and GoDaddy have mixed reviews.

Out of the web hosts I’ve tested, I found the performance of Bluehost to be near the top. Of course, all shared hosting providers are going to have some downtime; it’s just how stuff works. It’s also important to note that no caching plugins were used during any of my performance tests.

Not having an advertised uptime guarantee is the only thing that I don’t like about Bluehost. And being owned by EIG, doesn’t help their case neither.

Here’s how my website performed while it was being hosted on Bluehost:

I found that GoDaddy performs well for small websites that don’t get a lot of traffic. However, if your plan is to host a WordPress site on GoDaddy, things are going to get tricky.

When WordPress is installed on a GoDaddy shared hosting account, it’s typical for websites to load slow and experience constant downtime.

The worst thing is when you contact them and try to explain the issue. A majority of the time, they’ll have an excuse and recommend you to a more expensive package. This is unacceptable, even for a shared hosting account.

However, I like that they offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee.

Here’s how the same website performed while it was being hosted with GoDaddy:

Even though the page speeds are similar, I found that Bluehost rarely experiences downtime. Additionally, Bluehost does a good job at managing their servers and separating websites that utilize a lot of resources.

CONTROL PANEL

Depending on what you’re planning on doing with your hosting account, having a control panel that is easy to use is going to go a long way.

Fortunately, both Bluehost and GoDaddy utilize the cPanel interface. Both have a clean install of the popular cPanel interface that enables you to manage all aspects of your hosting account with ease.

Here is the Bluehost cPanel:

Here is the GoDaddy cPanel:

It is important to note that GoDaddy uses the cPanel interface on their Linux hosting accounts. Their Windows hosting packages utilize the Parallels Plesk interface.

SITE BUILDER

If you plan on building a website from scratch without using a script like WordPress, a site builder is going to come handy.

Bluehost provides you with a free site builder, Weebly Basic. It uses a drag and drop editor that makes it easy to create a website.

However, the free version of Weebly limits certain features and the amount of pages that you can create. Here is the free Weebly site builder being offered by Bluehost:

On the other hand, GoDaddy offers a premium site builder with free templates, ranging from $1/month to $10.99/month.

All of their plans give you the ability to create unlimited pages. The most expensive plan offers a mobile site, search engine optimization, and a social media manager.

Here are some templates that you can find on GoDaddy’s premium site builder:

At the end of the day, Bluehost offers a free site builder. You already have to pay for hosting, why pay for a site builder when you don’t have to?

MONEY BACK GUARANTEE

Both Bluehost and GoDaddy offer a money back guarantee. Bluehost offers a 30-day money back guarantee whereas GoDaddy offers a 45-day money back guarantee for annual packages and 48 hours for monthly packages.

I found it very easy to get a refund with both web hosting companies.

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

Bluehost offers 24/7 support via live chat, phone and email ticketing. In addition to the human support, Bluehost has an extensive resource page filled with tutorials and other support documentation. Their live chat response time is around one minute.

GoDaddy offers 24/7 support via live chat and phone. They no longer offer support through email ticketing. To this day, I was unable to reach their support through live chat as it’s always offline. Like Bluehost, they offer a hundreds of tutorials.

I found it easier to get in touch with Bluehost than GoDaddy.

FINAL VERDICT – WHICH WEB HOST IS BETTER?

If you’re looking for a shared hosting account, both Bluehost and GoDaddy are going to be good options for you. However, as your website grows, you may run into problems with GoDaddy (slow site, constant downtime, etc.).

After testing and using both web hosting providers, I found that Bluehost is the overall better web hosting company. Their performance is better, technical support is more responsive, and they give you a free site builder with templates.

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About Admir Gracanin

Hey guys, I am the man behind Rijalda.com. You can find me online on my blog, writing informative articles to help you choose the best gadgets and services, or at home, second-guessing football coaches. Continue reading

Comments

I would anyday prefer Bluehost over GoDaddy.As Bluehost is just phenomenal and also they expertise in WordPress hosting, whereas GoDaddy is too much of a long shot for me. Though I haven’t tried it and can’t say much about their service, but Bluehost anyway, and anyday. 🙂

I wouldnt prefer both of them for hosting because I use ASP.NET platform. But, I registered domain at Godaddy, they have good interface and their domain pricing is cheap too. They sometimes offer domain promo which I like.